


The Glamorous Life

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder, Dysfunctional Family, Fatherhood, Gen, Motherhood, Murder, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 20:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: Renesmee ponders her place in the world of half formed lies and shattered truths.





	The Glamorous Life

“Stop it.”

She stares down at the boy bleeding on the pavement before her, his face a mask of agony as he watches the blood drip down her fingertips. The sky is a bitter grey, the clouds hiding them from the omniscient eye of the sun, the sun which reveals all her secrets. The blood drips and the boy stares, the reflection of death in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t look at people like that. Stop it.”

She’s never seen so much blood, so much human blood before, the way it drips down his face. It’s everywhere now, the world is painted red beneath her feet, and soon there will be nothing left but the red shadow of her hands.

She’s not stupid; she knows she’s not stupid, her parents tell her she’s not. And her mother is a terrible liar, she knows this, she knows. But, she’s moving too quickly, she can’t sit still she can’t see like they can, she can’t hear what they can. She’s not stupid, she knows she isn’t, but sometimes they look so arrogant that she can’t help herself.

He’s trying to talk again, opening his mouth once again, she shuts it for him. The blood is everywhere, they’ll know when she goes home, they’ll see the red paint on her hands, they always do. But she’s not stupid and they should know better by now. 

“It hurts people’s feelings when you look at them like that, didn’t anyone ever tell you that, didn’t they?” She’s screaming at him, the horror in his eyes, looking and finally seeing, seeing past the stupidity, past the blank stares, past the mutilation. They never see her until it’s too late anyway.

He tries to back away, but he’s slow, he’s far slower than she is. His scream is hollow, it lacks the support it once had, he has no endurance in the end. She steps forward, blood dripping down her fingertips, dripping down the alley way where all the secrets hide away.

“You shouldn’t look like your better than everyone else, like your smarter.”

He’s moving so slowly, a shadow cast across the pavement, bathed in the red light of the setting sun peeking out from behind the clouds. Covered in blood, she’s always covered in blood. But he should have known, he should have known better, and she’s so tired of them looking at her.

She leaves him with a twisted face, the twisted face she drew for him, because it sees her behind the limbs that are too long and the hair that is too wild. It is only the disfigured that sees her behind the mask she wears. The blood is heavy, its intoxicating, its nauseating, she tastes the iron in her mouth as she walks home.

She never turns back, she doesn’t dare look back to see his twisted body left for the stars and moon to see.

* * *

They have to leave again, everything goes away into the boxes, you can fit the whole world in a cardboard box.

They always do, every time something bad happens, when someone gets hurt.  But they don’t like to talk about that, they just put everything in boxes and say it’s time to go again. But this time it’s worse, because they’re talking this time, and they look just like that little boy bleeding in the street.

The sunset shining in their golden eyes, reflecting the monster covered in blood. Because she’s always covered in blood, even when she doesn’t mean to be. They move quickly moving away from her, their voices full of shadows as they move into other rooms, with other boxes. And she’s alone, sitting on the floor, staring at the brown box wondering just what they managed to fit inside.

The whole world can fit into a box, if you pack it right.

They whisper and look at one another, watching her, they look sad, but sometimes they look frightened. Her mother stares out the window, she doesn’t say anything, just staring at the glass the way she always does when Nessie comes home bathed in blood. But the others argue and stare, shout in their whispering voices, all the words they hide so cleverly come out of their hiding places. And the boxes are filled once again.

“Goddammit we can’t keep doing this Carlisle, this is the fifth time!” Uncle Emmet is the only one who shouts, who talks loud enough that she can hear without pressing her ear against the door. She has to be very quiet, or else they’ll stop talking, even though they know she’s there. They know everything, they know about the blood and the stars, they know about the stares and the cold smiles. They even know about the boxes, they just can’t see them right.

“She’s only a child, she’s been doing better but…” The words disappear once again, back into hiding, back into the boxes until they’re unpacked again, until the blood drips from her hands down to the floor, until they find whatever she left behind. Running away before they find you, before they find out what you’ve done, before they see your reflection in the window glass, before they see you.

“Better? Is this better? At least the others could crawl back home by the time she was done with them. This isn’t normal Carlisle, she ripped this kid’s face off, he’ll never be normal now. Not after what she did to him. Did you see her when she walked in? Soaked in his blood like some goddamn butcher, not even an I’m sorry.” The words are booming, sending her away from the door’s frame, back towards the sea of boxes. Sorry, sorry, sorry they always want her to say she’s sorry. Like it will make things better, but her clothes are still red and he’s still lying there face down in the empty street.

“She’s only a child, Emmett.” Grandfather’s patient sigh, the bitter argument that comes out of the boxes, the unspoken fear hanging in the air. It moves too slowly, she cannot hear the silent words, she cannot see the reason to fear. She can only feel the dried blood on her hands, and see the waiting boxes.

Her father’s patient voice, ringing out over them all, the golden eyes that see past life and death. The eyes that see past the blood and the death beneath her feet, like the sun she cannot hide from his shadow. “I don’t think she even understands the concept of age, let alone abides by it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

But they know what it means the shadows and the whispers, the voices of the stars, silent and watchful, her father’s eyes staring out from the sky, the truth is there for all to see, illuminated by their silence.  And the little girl, waiting on the outside, looking in, the observer of the silence, missing the truth as she runs past them, runs away, running away into the dark.

“It means that boy was not the first and he won’t be the last. We have made a grave mistake,” She feels the eyes upon her, searching, seeing the blood the horror, the fear and the shadows, those golden eyes shining out from the stars. The silence again, all consuming, like the clouds surrounding the sun, hiding, crouching, always hiding.

“I just wish I could see her, I just wish she didn’t…” Her aunt’s voice faded in the frustration, the sentence picked up by her brother, the omniscient twins, consumed with the phantoms of both present and future.

“That’s how she defines herself, the thing that cannot be seen, the thing should not be and yet is. She defines herself as other, not by any name we give her nor any title we deem righteous to place upon her brow. She is neither vampire nor human, ghost or spirit, she is herself and she slips between our fingers like dust. She is other.” The eyes, the eyes of ember fading, burning, watching as she creeps back into the shadows away from the words, from her words, from the world’s dark shadow hanging over her. Definitions, too slow, too fast, keep up Nessie, keep up or you’ll be left behind.

Left with the boxes and the shadows of your guilt, the eyes of god are watching, be careful they do not see what you have to hide. Too slow, too slow, keep up, or you’ll be left behind and they’ll leave without you.

“So then, what do we do now?”

“We try again,” Her father, he knew she was there, crouched beside the door, how could he not? He knew the world inside and out, he was the one who fit it into the cardboard box. “And pray we don’t fail this time.”

* * *

Her mother finds her beside the window, staring out upon the snow covered kingdom of the mortals, the world beyond hers where her family mixed and mingled but where she was left behind, left with the empty house and the silent instruments. It is both captivating and frightening, to see the world beyond her reach, a taste of what she might have been given, a taste of what might have been.

“I remember when you were younger, when you used to play in the woods with Jacob… You looked so happy then, as if nothing in the world could harm you.” The words of what had been and would never be again, outside of the walls of her prison many possibilities existed, teasing her, taunting the black bird with the broken wings. And still she watches, as the world moves beyond her, past her, away from her.

She says nothing, there is nothing to say, the window beckons but the glass denies. Always she finds herself with broken wings, the wings her father gave to her, her gift, her curse.

“Would you like me to read Pride and Prejudice to you?” Her mother is reaching for the small child, the girl with the thick book in her hands, with the smile on her face, untouched, untainted, the world had yet to tell her the truth about her wings. Little Nessie never fell until they told her she had no wings.

“No thank you,” Her mother’s hopes, her mother’s dreams, but not hers, not the world beyond the window but a shadow of it. She is too old to settle for the words of what once was and is no longer. Nessie’s hands wrapped around a leather bound book.

“But it’s your favorite…”

The book is Nessie’s, little Nessie’s fingers wrapped around the binding, little Nessie limping behind, little Nessie covered in blood, little Nessie locked away, little Nessie left to die. Nessie staring out the window, her reflection in the glass, the brown-eyed demon her pale skin glowing in the distant winter sunlight, Nessie with hands clutching at the dark fabric of her skirt.

“It lies to me, mother. It lies and pretends, I’m tired of the lies. I’m so very tired.” She presses her face against the glass, toward the reflection of her mother’s aged eyes, toward the sorrow and the pain in her mother’s masklike face.

“No Renesme, it doesn’t lie, happy endings are possible, you have a family who loves you. I know it’s hard but soon you’ll see, it will get better, I promise.” Her mother’s hug, the spread of thoughts, the images jumping off her skin. All her secrets seeping through the skin, diffusing into the blood, into the mind. Nessie’s dark secrets are never hers to keep.

“I’m so sorry, honey.”

Sorry, remorse, guilt how it plagues their minds but hers is untouched. They cultivate her mind like a piece of land, arranging, rearranging, planting their ideas into the fertile soil, watching the weeds grow and spread. She is their broken blackbird, sitting on the windowsill looking over the world she cannot have, locked away because she is too young, because she is too dangerous, because they cannot see her.

“When will you let me out?” Her prison walls have lost their friendly pallor, the instruments are silent, they won’t play for her thin fingers. The windows beckon, the wind is fair, but they do not open because she knows they would find her and drag her back, too dangerous, too fey, too other.

“Soon.”

The other knows, the other knows they lie, because they always lie, it is always soon. Time is nothing to them, time is change, time is mortal, but they defy time therefore time defies them. Soon is anything, soon is nothing, soon is the walls of her prison glaring down upon her.

The other knows, she inherited her father’s eyes after all.

* * *

They scratch upon the paper, the gnarled fingers of the pencil, their lead fingernails leaving a trace of their claws upon the ethereal white. Equations written backwards and forwards, they march across her page, a little army of logic marching out to conquer the world. She likes the equations for their simplistic mindset, for often she feels they do not quite understand the enemy they are fighting, the irrational where all numbers fade away into dust.

Sometimes she even pities them, but she never tells them for it would break their inky hearts.

They stare at the bored in front of them, side by side, row by row, their eyes watch as the teacher writes and erases moves back and forth, back and forth. Like a play in which an actor has forgotten his line, the teacher stutters and points to the bored, the hands raise around her. A salute to a fallen god, to the empire that conquers all. And she sits and waits, a shadow in the corner of the room, the equations marching up and down her paper.

They don’t see her, they don’t hear her words, she is a star gazing down upon their world, trapped in its celestial orb, the crystal sphere rotating on its tilted axis, for only god and his angel’s to see. They don’t turn at her mumbled words, at her silent answers, for they are always correct now, she has learned to see through the one-way mirror.

It is an illusion, a glimpse of what she might have had, but the fates had a different plan in mind. They sat sewing their tapestry, three blind women, cutting away at the lives of the mortals above them, but there are some strings they dare not touch. Once upon a time there was a young woman who fell in love with a demon. They met in the space between worlds and stayed there, trapped in the emptiness that encompassed the twilight. For twilight is better than no light at all. But their child lost herself to the half-light, their child wore a badly woven mask of her own creation, and oh how she tries to find the stable earth. She tries so hard and yet she is drowning in the expectations, the bitter facades, the lies they expect her to follow.

But the mathematics, she loves the mathematics, she loves the valiant attempts of the little army, marching up and down the pages of the eager students. She loves the scent of graphite in the air, she loves the knowledge that trickles through the room, just loud enough for her to hear, to feel the essence.

Knowledge will always be there, even when all else fades, when the sky turns from grey to red, the stars twirl about the heaven’s in their eternal waltz but knowledge remains. In that silent classroom she scratches, she watches, and the words whisper in her ears. It is knowledge that keeps her in that room, in the sunlight (bright, bright, always too bright), walking down their halls bumping into their backs. The images flowing from her mind, the aura of her secrets lost to the hand of another, her words lost to the overpopulated air. It’s so terribly crowded, so very crowded.

But they don’t see, they can’t see her, they only see the mask. The mask she has worn since the day she was born, they see a shadow of Nessie, for Nessie has left and only an imprint of her remains. They don’t see the other, hiding behind those fickle brown eyes, though she is always there just out of sight. They choose not to see her, as she chooses not to be seen by them. She knows better than to crave for illumination, she is a shade of smoke, she was never meant for the sun’s piercing rays.

“Miss Cullen, would please be so kind as to give the answer to question thirty-three?”

A little army marching off the page, they flow onto the white board, little birds with black wings. Her scribbled children, their deformed legs and tangled arms, they try so hard but in the end it is never what they expected. And yet they fly, despite their leaden feathers, despite their sticklike frames they hover in the air, and their answer is given. For they are not as Icarus was, they know never to seek out ambition’s heavy glow.

“Very good Miss Cullen,”

They fall back onto the hollow page, the scattered leaves of autumn, curling at their ends they are scattered about the page. A memory of an answer, left for the world to trod upon, the immortal little army, marching onwards, past time and death or any kingdom of man.

Her deformed children, reaching back towards starlight, for the softer light of the moon. The moon with so many different faces, a reflection of sunlight across her white features. It is for her deformed children that she stays, among the living and the dead, she stays so that she might see the miracle of their flight and the betrayal in their eyes as they fall.

And then they will all wave goodbyes, and the flight will begin again.

* * *

They walk down the path, Jacob and the other, the trees shading them from the clouds hanging overhead. He smiles as he looks down upon her, she can’t remember how to smile back, it’s been so very long. Her books are strapped to her back, they walk away from the world, back to the forest. Back and back until the earth speaks of nothing but its wildness, beyond the touch of man or demon.

The trees begin to whisper, the earth hums gently beneath her feet, and the sky disappears from view. Serenity, for the trees are older than all the world, and nothing can outlast the earth and sky. Neither man nor his demons are so powerful as that.

“Darwin was wrong you know,” She says as they reached the edge of a spring, the clear water showing her reflection. The girl with the pale face and the inconstant brown eyes, her quiet words wrap themselves around the leaves and the cedar limbs.

“What?” He asks, for he cannot hear the voices of the earth, the whisper of the brook. He cannot hear their sorrow or their wisdom, and often she pities him for it.

“The theory of evolution, it’s wrong.” Her feet dip into the pool, the clear water surrounds them, pushing and pulling at the frail limbs, she watches as they long to drift down into the dark, into the unseen places of the earth. “Biologically vampires are superior to humanity, we are faster, stronger, more intelligent we live longer… And yet it is humans who rule the world. We are ruled by fear of a creature that is less than ourselves. What have we to fear from man?”

Jacob frowns, the wolf boy, he will always be the wolf boy clinging to his pride and prejudices until the day when the earth shrivels. He cannot hear the forest, he cannot hear the earth, he cannot see her face though he loves it so dearly.

“Superiority has done nothing for the vampire, who hides from his own shadow. We are but a deformed limb of humanity, we are the twisted hands that build nothing for ourselves. Humanity has named us, humanity has defied us, and yet it is humanity we cling to. We monstrous parasites, we twisted legs, and gnarled hands…”

Humanity is the pedestal, the glorious ideal, and the vampire waits below with their golden eyes and their stolen hearts. They wait and glorify the human, the creator, the watchmaker who decides their fate. They survive and yet their survival is a sin, and so they wait in the shadows for they are the twisted limbs of the self-proclaimed god.

The wolf boy listens he hears the words that have always been running through his mind, he hears his enemies in her speech, but he does not hear what she has said. He does not see the mangled, tangled, limbs as she does. He sees only his people, being drained away by the pale-faced demon, but he does not see the helplessness in the demon’s eyes.

“What makes you think they’re better than humans Nessie?” He asks, the harshness of his tone tainting the air of the forest, but he does not hear the soft whispers, he does not listen to the earth as she does. He does not and will never understand, and that is the sorrow of it. For he is only a limb as well, not quite so deformed or hideous, but he clings unaware to humanity none the less.

“Biologically superior is what I said, morals are generally disregarded in the animal kingdom.” Animals survive through stealing the life of those who fend for themselves, she finds it fascinating, knowing that she is no different than any other creature fending for itself, evil is a state of mind, an opinion invented by man.

“What is a soul but an invention of man, belonging to the realm of man. It has never touched our world, this desire to please a god who damns us and drives us from our shores. And yet, the soul is the key it is what they possess and we do not. They have salvation, and that is their saving grace.” She pauses, her hands gripping at the earth, feeling for the weight of the sun upon her shoulders for his eyes to see her for what she truly is. “But what is the soul in the hunt for survival, for domination, the soul is the name. Meaningless and irrelevant to all but the being who owns it.”

State and religion, they mingle in the oddest of places. She finds them in her biology text book, in the words of a now silent man. Natural selection… Such an odd phrase, a theory is only correct until it is disproven. But who would believe the weight of a soul?

Her father’s golden eyes as he stares across the classroom, the cracked reflection in the shards of a mirror. He cannot see himself, for he sees only what he aspires to be, the memory of what once was. Fixated on what he does not possess, the soul, the salvation, the gift of redemption. He sees only the naivety in their eyes, and covets it desperately his pale hands holding nothing but a wisp of nostalgia. They lose themselves to the wanting, to the illusion they have worked so hard to create, so easily shattered. Even by a child walking home drenched in blood.

She has not forgotten the horror in their eyes, not at her, but at themselves for the reflection of what they truly are and have always been. They run from themselves, from their own shadows chasing desperately after them. And in their ignorance they call it happiness, because they cannot see the darkness of the earth and sky.

He is silent, his anger pulsating throughout the air, she can feel it in her bones. The pride of man when lowered from his pedestal, for he has never stopped being human, he cannot see the way she can, he cannot see the child of two worlds. There is only one of her after all, and even the trees and earth can only see her wavering shadow.

 “What about you Nessie, where do you fit in this?”

She knew he wouldn’t understand, she knew, and yet she spoke all the same. Perhaps she felt that someone might hear the words, that someone might see the fragile wings of the stars, that someone might feel the earth dance beneath their feet. But she is always alone, alone in a sea of gods who wear mortal faces, the faces of what they have left behind. Always, left behind, in the dark, alone. She tries so hard.

She doesn’t fit, she is neither limb nor mind, she is neither man nor any other creature. She is herself as she has always been, she doesn’t know the answer to that question. Once upon a time there was a demon with golden eyes and a young girl with eyes of autumn wood…

She turns to face his russet human eyes, to see the tightening of his jaw and the clenching of his hands, the suppressed anger.

She speaks the only honest words she knows.

* * *

The lunch tray in her hands, she walks forward, untied laces trailing behind her as she walks towards the table in the corner. She stops walking when she sees them, the family with the golden eyes, she hears their bubbling laughter, their bright conversation. Her eyes widen as she watches them, watches as they roll the uneaten food in their hands, as they lean in close to one another.

Golden eyes, the eyes of the dragon, of the unspoken earth. She feels the soil beneath the floor, claimed and tamed by man, and she sees behind their pale masks. They turn, watching her, watching as her tray clangs against the tiles of the floor. Watching always watching, their golden eyes like the stars in heaven. The stars crashed to the earth, dwindling away into nothingness, and they didn’t even know. They didn’t even know.

The world crashes around her because she can finally see them, the little other in her beat up sneakers and her torn jeans, she can see through their lies and their twisting faces. The cracked mirror, she shakes because she can finally see them, after all those years of waiting, of the darkness, and the sea of boxes. She can finally see after all those years of trying to blind her.

She sees them for what they truly are and she chooses to walk away.

* * *

The notes flew from his hand, the scribbles as he stares from the crowded tables, his blue eyes locked upon that single table. And it is Nessie who catches his eye, he meets her gaze across the rows of tables, and the words leave her thoughts before she can contain them. _Leave now, human-boy._

The omen, the prophecy, she has seen his kind before. The kind who knows too much, the kind who sees behind the surface, and they always meet the same end. For even they cannot contain the madness that dwells within her mind. For it always finds them, and sends them far away, where she can never find them again.

She doesn’t like to speak with the mind, she doesn’t like to send the images across the vast expanse between one mind and another, it is frightening, for what she shows isn’t always true. Vivid and bright they entrance the witness, drawing them further down the tangled labyrinth, farther, farther into darkness. Until they cease to be able to find their way back, and they are caught with her, with the other. And then they simply disappear altogether…

 _Out_. _Away_. _So very crowded…_

Sometimes they flooded out, she couldn’t help it, it was so very dark in her mind. She only wanted to bring in a little light, but they never made it to the center, they never found the heart, only the riddles, only the madness.

She tries, she has always tried so very hard. But it hardly matters anymore, does it? Nessie is gone, and only the madness remains, the infectious disease that reaches out and grabs those few unsuspecting victims.

He writes away, and she can’t resist the pull of his blue eyes, so light, so light in the darkness. She doesn’t send him anything, no, she won’t do that, she won’t torment him, she won’t drag him down. But she writes for him, a scribble, a hint. So that he may see by his own light, but not by her, for he only has human eyes.

She remembers the madness, she remembers their dull gazes as they stared back at her, emptiness eating their expressions. Nothing in their minds but her words, echoing backwards, until she was screaming.

There wouldn’t be any screaming this time; she would make sure he brought his own light with him.

* * *

_There once was a demon of the forest with eyes as gold as the morning sun, he took for a bride the girl with eyes of earth her moonlit hand clasped with his._

She tries to shut him out, for he pesters and festers, lingers and clings to her. He is always there, his golden eyes far too bright, hearing the words of the silent other, the thing that does not speak. The demon child with memories of the twilight.

_He took her to his twilight palace. Led her in a dance, a smile upon both of their faces. His pale hand upon her back as they twirled in the flickering candle light—only a hint of darkness in their bright world._

It is not easy because he is older, and it’s so easy for him to hear. He hears everything, he skims the surface, only the surface. But nonetheless he hears, there is no way to block him out. She tries so hard.

_She laughs as she spins in his arms, the human world far behind her now, consumed by the twilight of her half-life. She forgets the world of men, she forgets the feel of the earth beneath her feet and the sky over her head. For she is so happy in his arms._

And father is frightened of her, she knows, she sees it as they look at each other. He lies for the others, he lies to grandfather’s soft eyes, he lies to her mother’s worried eyes. But he knows, and he is so very frightened.

_She bears him a child, their own twilight princess, shrouded in the darkness of a world caught in between. The daughter’s eyes are that of autumn wood, they shift with the trees and the earth, and they rejoice in the sound of her fragile heartbeat. Yet the stars do not shine, for the world is still filled with the half-light of contentment and the setting sun still bleeds into the earth._

He doesn’t want to know, so she tries, she tries for him and for herself. So that he can be out, so he doesn’t have to see the world through her twisted eyes. But the walls are not easily built, the bridge is strong, and he sees so many things awry.

_She grew like the sapling, shooting upwards towards the heavens, and they rejoiced in the sight of her pale skin and human eyes. But they were betrayed by their faith, both father and mother, for they had told too many lies and their illusions were not as clever as they had thought._

But he doesn’t want to see, she knows he doesn’t. So he ignores what he can and they stay far from each other, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree but she has legs and she can walk if she has too. And she will if she is forced to.

_They locked her in the dark for fear of the reflection in her wood brown eyes, they fed her the lies they told themselves in both fear and desperation. They gave her the endless days they had given themselves, they gave her the twilight, the world without stars or sunlight. It was a prison of love they created, because they feared their own creations._

The reflections look so deformed as she stares into the crystal ball, watching the curve of her face and her eyes, her human eyes. She wonders if they see what she can, even as she tries to shut them out there is the curiosity to let them know. But she speaks to freely and such things are best left unspoken. Where father can’t see.

_Mother, father, and child they remained. Twisting the girl’s reflection, rearranging the broken glass so as to better suit their lives, they dance onward the twilight sparkling off their crystal skin the girl watching from the shadows waiting for the darkness to arrive._

She cannot always keep him out, but she tries all the same; until only the reflection of the girl with the autumn eyes remains.

* * *

“It’s twilight again.”

It’s a whisper in the wind, the small crash of the waves below, the sigh of the trees as the sun sets bleeding into the sea. Her voice carries in the breeze to where the ever attentive if not quite comprehensive Jacob awaits. Her shadow, her guard, and her constant reminder.

The sun drifts slowly below the horizon, its orange glow painting her skin with red. She opens her palms to it watching as the light reflects off her skin.

“I wish it could just make up its mind, night or day, black or white, darkness or light. Why must it have both? Why must it always be and, never or?” She waits for his answer, the sun hanging in the sky held by the strings of the apathetic gods. Twilight again, it is always twilight.

“I think it’s nice, I mean there are good things about both. Why do you need to choose?”

Why not both, why not the twilight? Why not the path in between, the way between the worlds? Why not and? Why not the wood and the mortal lover? Why not the masks and the illusions? Why abandon the sunset only for the sake of stability?

The twilight princess, the other, a creature condemned to the sunset. To the orb that hangs in the sky, drifting down towards the sea, towards a new beginning and end. Why choose when one can have both, why choose when there is no choice to be made, why choose at all?

“But if you had a choice, which would you pick?”

He pauses, a hand through his tangled dark hair. His eyes are narrowed as he tries to puzzle through the riddle, to see the true choice behind the words. He is always looking but he can never see, she knows, but she asks him anyway.

“Would you choose the twilight?” She prompts, watching the way his face was painted by the dying glow. Would he choose the thing that was always dying yet never living? Would he choose the not-quite mortal but not-quite immortal?

“Maybe, I don’t really know right now. I think this is one of those things that you don’t know until you have to choose, fork in the road type thing.” He doesn’t ask for the reason behind the question, he’s learned that much at least. “We should go home, your mother will be worried.”

“Yes,” She stands giving one last look towards the sea and the rocks below. “But it will be twilight again.”

* * *

“It’s not my fault.” She says, but it’s a lie because it is and he’s dead. She said too much, she always says too much, she just wanted someone to listen. Her hands are stained with his blood, she shakes his pale corpse in her hands, she tried so very hard.

It’s never enough.

“Goddammit.” Her father paused his pacing, he looked down at her cradling the head of the boy. The boy she had sent to his grave, another body, another dead and useless body.

“It’s not my fault.” But he can see the blood, he’s seen everything, he always has. He has eyes like fire and he looks down at her and he sees everything.

“Goddammit!” He repeats this time stopping in front of the window, looking out on the twilight, the everlasting twilight. “We were wrong, you haven’t changed.”

_Once upon a time there was a handsome prince of darkness and a beautiful maiden, he took her hand in the wood between the worlds and led her into the shadows of twilight…_

He turns to look at her, seeing her blood stained hands and her mournful eyes along with the pale corpse in her arms. Death with autumn eyes, death in mourning, death above the grave of the unknown soldier; she was all those things. He had always wanted Nessie, but she wasn’t there, only her shadow with dripping corpses in her arms.

Such a disappointment.

_And though he was beautiful there was a curse upon his house, to take the blood of the living and covet the world of light…_

“Father I did everything I could, I tried.”

But trying is never good enough, a failure, a mistake, a crime, a stain upon his reputation. Ashamed of her, he is ashamed as he stands there trying to keep the misery from his eyes. He has always seen but has he ever truly looked? Well he’s looking now, he’s looking and seeing her in all her bloodstained half-bred wonder. Does he regret it?

“No, regret is too strong a word.”

_Though she loved him greatly the maiden never saw her prince to be both a liar and a thief…_

 “We’ll have to leave again, we’ll have to pack up, disappear for a few decades when they’ve all but forgotten you.” Lies, lies, lies are for the wicked and the damned though he has claimed so fervently to be neither.

“And the world shall be placed so carefully into a cardboard box.”

Yes she remembers the boxes; she remembers the whispers and the shouts, the piteous gazes and the lies. The lies they tell themselves and the lies they tell her, she remembers the lies above all else.

_So they danced into the sunlight, into the barren moonlight and the distant stars. She held her arms around his neck as he twirled her away from her homeland, always leaving the illusion that she might someday return…_

“It will get better.” He says finally, the lie slipping so casually from his tongue almost as if he believes it himself.

_And though they loved each other, her feet became blistered and her blood became thin. She fell into the arms of the demon prince and begot a child from him. Though she stood again one day it took her years to realize that she had forgotten how to dance and how to exit the wood._

* * *

“I’m leaving,” She says to her mother, to the woman who once had eyes like the desert earth. Isabella Cullen pauses, at first reaching for words to speak and then falling silent as she noted the look in her daughter’s eyes.

Why? That is the question, it is the question the all ask because they have been both blind and deaf and she has had enough of it. She has had enough of their masks, their costumes, their illusions, and their charades. She is tired of the twilight; she is tired of being caught between two worlds.

(They always said she looks like her mother, but she has always taken after her father. She may have her mother’s eyes but she has her father’s lack of a soul.)

“Even you had a choice, mother.” She says it softly, picturing the apple fallen into the pale girl’s hands the choice whether to be damned or to die, to fall or to jump.

But Isabella Swan does not understand, because she wasn’t born into the world of ghosts and demons. She doesn’t understand, and she never will. She’s too blinded by her contentment, by the glamour of the lies. Though mother has the same eyes as father she will never see like he does.

Or perhaps she did once, and she chose to die, she chose the bliss of ignorance. She chose the woodland prince, she chose the dream and the fantasy, she chose immortality. She chose to bear the daughter of a demon.

It was her mother’s fault, the victim of the vampire’s glamour. It was her mother’s fault she was the way she was, she could easily blame her mother. She had more than once, it was easy to blame the victim. Who could blame the demon, but it is easy to blame the fair maiden. The woman who had a choice.

“Renesme, you don’t have to go.” Bella whispers, reaching for her daughter’s translucent hand. The hand that is almost but not quite, neither this nor that, near nor far, light nor death. But the maiden never understood the twilight, she could never see past the shadows.

In the end she does not say goodbye, because that would have been too easy. She loves her mother, so she won’t speak as if she may come back. There is no home for Nessie in the place between worlds, she will look for either moon or sun, either will do for her now. She has lived too long in the twilight.

The apple is in her mother’s hand, and though she takes a bite it is her demon child who chooses to wander from Eden.


End file.
